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COLLABORATIVE LEARNING IN THE CONTEXT OF THE WEB-ORIENTED MODEL OF EDUCATION EXPERIENCE OF THE ORGANIZATION OF THE COURSE “RUSSIAN IN BUSINESS COMMUNICATION”
А. А. Belovodskaya
This article focuses on the possibilities to integrate different forms of collaborative learning into the web-oriented model of education. Owing to the intense use of World Wide Web resources as well as the appliance of smart technologies in the process of collective solution of the tasks set for a group of students, a synergetic educational effect can be gained when the development of one's own language competence takes place simultaneously with the development of interpersonal communicative skills, team work, searches, as well as structuring of information.
Key words: collaborative learning, a mixed model of education, web-oriented model of education.
The idea of collaborative learning is far from being new, and in different versions, widely used in teaching practice. In addition, collaborative learning is successfully combined with the use of new information technologies, and perfectly integrates into a web-oriented model of education. Such an integration of different technologies allows the creation of a learning platform, so that it can be used in a distance and a mixed model of education based on a combination of work in a lecture hall with active use of web-resources and smart technologies.
The most important component of foreign language learning is the development of communicative competence. Collaborative learning helps to successfully develop the communicative approach in teaching, due to the fact that the language stops being perceived only as a study subject, and starts being used in its main, communicative, function. In this article, the team-role form of collaborative learning included in the web-oriented learning of Russian in business communication for foreign language students will be discussed.
The work with the course “Russian in Business Communication” is build up according to the artificially modelled situation, which is set as an initial for the students: a large state or commercial enterprise (“customer”) issues a tender for obtaining services in one or another area. The customer of the tender and the services ordered by this customer may vary according to the interest and professional orientation of students themselves. In our case (students of philological profile), the situation is offered when a real existing enterprise issues a tender for obtaining services in the area of copywriting or translation. Divided into groups of two people each, students should find information on the internet about companies involved in the activity of interest of the customer and then choose a company in the name of which they should work further. So for example, getting acquainted with the types of business papers (job application form, appointment order, etc.), students learn to make up a document using the requisites of the company chosen; working on composing a curriculum vitae, students orient on those positions they would like to hold in the chosen company. Such web-oriented
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work allows students to get involved in realities of business life, and to learn how to work with the very wide information space of the Russian speaking internet, despite the fact that Russian is only in the 9th place on the scale of the most spoken languages on the internet. By the amount of sites created in Russian, Runet is in the 2nd place in the World Wide Web (according to the data of A. G. Azimov). Upon that, performing searches and picking up information on the Runet, students obtain background knowledge in linguistic and cultural studies and business communication.
At the end of the course, during an improvised tender, some competing groups of students show presentations of their companies. Evaluating presentations, the teacher considers their correspondence with an “addressee factor” which means not simply the skill to find and to pick up information about a company mechanically, but also to present it so that it would show how services offered by the company and its experience correspond with tender customer requirements. The students, who do not take part in this tender (their task is to choose the most suitable company and to make a contract with it) act as “representatives” of the customer. Besides the “customers”, there are people, also so called “anti-lobbyists” in the auditorium asking “discrediting” questions, with the goal of promoting their own company indirectly. Such a scenario, modelling the learning situation, offers the students the opportunity to try different social roles and to develop manifold skills of social interaction. At the same time, the students develop skills of critical listening and spontaneous speaking, which is especially important when learning foreign languages.
The web-site based on the Google platform (an example of one of the websites: https://sites.google.com/site/delovojrusskijazyk2015/) is used for organization of the learning process, both in the lecture hall and outside of it. Thanks to the use of Wiki technologies, this resource can be used not only as a “virtual” depositary of course materials and instructions for project work, but also as a platform for the collaborative creation of content and communication of students with each other and with a teacher. It should be noted that, in the process of collaborative learning, “learning takes place in the communication process” (Gerlach, 1994), thanks to which a traditional monologue transfer of information from a teacher to a student is replaced with a polylogue. The teacher becomes a coordinator of the learning process, with the goal to establish the maximum realistic communication in the language learned. In addition, Wiki technologies allow the teacher to receive feedback from students, independent of location, and at a time convenient for the students.
In conclusion, we note that the integration of collaborative learning into a web-oriented model of education allows us to move over to a new step of development of new learning technologies - “smart education”, i.e. “flexible learning in an interactive learning environment with the help of freely available content world wide” (Tikhomirov V.P., Tikhomirova N.V., 2012). Resulting from the interaction of all the learning process components mentioned, a synergetic effect is obtained, manifesting itself most remarkably when learning foreign languages: along with development of all types of speech activity (reading, writing, speaking and listening) and significant enrichment of vocabulary and background
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knowledge, skills of interpersonal communication, team work, search and structuring information are developed according to the tasks set.
Literature
Азимов Э. Г. Информационно-коммуникационные технологии в преподавании русского языка как иностранного. - М.: Русский язык. Курсы, 2012.
Тихомиров В. П., Тихомирова Н. В. Smart-education: новый подход к развитию образования. МЭСИ, 2012. - URL: http://www.elearningpro.ru/forum/topics/smart-education [Accessed 25 March 2015].
Gerlach J. M. Is this collaboration? In: Bosworth, K. & Hamilton, S. J. (Eds.), Collaborative Learning: Underlying Processes and Effective Techniques. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, № 59. p. 5-14. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishing, 1994.
Marjan Laal, Mozhgan Laal. Collaborative learning: what is it? In: Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences World Conference on Learning, Teaching & Administration, 2012. - URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042811030217 [Accessed 25 March 2015].
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